


Bud of the Bud

by lady_deathangel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drug Use, F/M, Homophobia, M/M, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-15
Updated: 2012-12-15
Packaged: 2017-11-21 04:13:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/593325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_deathangel/pseuds/lady_deathangel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somewhere between first kisses and funerals, Riverside, Iowa and the Grand Canyon, two boys learn a lot about love, friendship, and moving forward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bud of the Bud

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pyjamagurl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pyjamagurl/gifts).



_Now_

They get their picture taken in front of a large, stone monument that proudly declares Riverside, Iowa as the future birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk. It’s a sticky summer afternoon and the elderly woman gamely attempting to figure out their digital camera without assistance has on a wide-brimmed hat that shades the entire top half of her body.

“Here, let me help you,” Sam says in a voice biologically engineered to charm old ladies.

Sure enough the woman beams up at Sam like he’s her very own grandson and hands over the camera with a girlish giggle.

“I’m just _awful_ with all this digital stuff,” she says. “My grandson has to come over every Saturday to help me send messages on the Facebook.”

Jessica hides a laugh behind one hand and nudges Dean when he doesn’t have the decency to do the same.

“What?” he asks, still grinning.

She just rolls her eyes and pokes him in the side. To his dying day Dean will insist he isn’t ticklish, but the girl’s bony fingers have this way of finding the one cluster of nerves between his ribs that can make him jump and swallow down high-pitched sounds of laughter. His attempt to dodge the attack just knocks him into the body next to his and a hand finds his waist to steady him.

“It’s not that exciting, Dean,” Castiel says.

His voice is deadpan but there’s a smirk playing around the edges of his mouth when Dean glances over at him. It’ll probably be about two minutes before all three of them gang up on him and start with the teasing but he refuses to be ashamed. _Star Trek_ isn’t just for geeks.

“I think I’ve got it,” the old lady says.

Sam grins down at her and jogs back to the monument. They rearrange themselves so the lettering is clearly visible, Jessica with her fingers poking up behind Sam’s head in bunny ears and Dean with an arm draped around Castiel’s shoulders.

“Say cheese!”

 

_Then_

 

The funeral isn’t the worst day of Castiel’s life, but it comes in a close second to the night he found out about his parents and the accident. Staying with Uncle Zachariah’s only supposed to be a temporary summer thing that happens when his parents leave for one of their annual trips. Castiel still hasn’t gotten used to the fact that it’s permanent, now. He’ll never get to go back home.

His parents are buried in his dad’s hometown. Everyone whispers about how inappropriate that is considering how quickly he left it behind for a bigger city and brighter lights. No one knows if it’s what Castiel’s parents would have wanted, him least of all, but they never specified where they’d like to be laid to rest or even if they’d prefer that over cremation.

Uncle Zachariah handles all of it, though not without making a few snide comments about how Castiel’s father was always flighty and unprepared and making things damned inconvenient for the rest of the family. Castiel just sits and listens, too numb for the rage bubbling up inside his belly to take hold.

For days he just goes through the motions. He eats when he’s told to and showers because he knows he needs to and sleeps only when his body can’t go on without it anymore. The one thing he doesn’t do is talk to anyone. Not his cousins or his aunt and uncle; he refuses to see Dean.

The day of the funeral dawns bright and sunny like nobody got word of the tragedy that’s upended Castiel’s entire life. Castiel musters up enough energy to glare at the sun just outside of the bedroom window, but after that it hits him that his parents are going to be buried in just a few short hours and his ability to function just picks itself up and leaves.

He’s aware of things like Gabriel trying to get his attention and Anna’s confused questions about why they have to go to the funeral if everyone’s going to be so sad. Through it all, Castiel just sits in bed and stares out at the pristine lawns in front of all the neighboring houses and breathes only because his body remembers how.

Eventually his Aunt Rachel comes in, dressed all in black with her blonde hair pulled back in a tight bun. She always seems so severe, so much like Uncle Zachariah, but her grip is soft when she closes her hands over Castiel’s shoulders and her voice is low and soothing as she coaxes him up and into his only Sunday suit.

It’s Aunt Rachel who guides Castiel through the day, getting him buckled up in the car and seated in a pew in the church. The service is short; there are only a few people present to speak for his mother and Uncle Zachariah speaks only briefly of his father. There’s a tense moment somewhere in the middle where his aunt and uncle whisper fiercely about whether or not “The Other One” is going to stumble up to the pulpit and speak but nothing happens except for the preacher standing up again. The last prayers swim in Castiel’s ears, clogging them up with words he can’t comprehend about loss and moving on and a better place.

When it ends, Castiel stands and stares straight ahead as all the attendees walk past to offer condolences. He hears more utterances of “I’m sorry” than he knows what to do with. Beside him, Aunt Rachel nods her thank yous and accepts hugs and Castiel listens with half an ear. It isn’t until the room grows oddly hushed that Castiel even realizes the line’s stalled and he blinks until he can force his eyes to focus on the face in front of his.

Castiel doesn’t know what it is because Dean doesn’t look any different. He’s still got the same short, blonde hair and green eyes and freckles as he did a week ago when they swam until his pale skin was bright red with sunburn. His whole family’s there with him when Castiel bothers to glance sideways and they’re all staring. He wishes they would stop because something about it makes the lump in his stomach move up to his throat.

When he looks back to Dean, it just . . . bursts. It feels like a thousand tiny needles lodged in his throat and the inside of his mouth and the corners of his eyes. There’s a matching pain in his stomach, an ache that doesn’t feel like sickness so much as pure, unfiltered hurt. Dean’s eyes soften and his bottom lip trembles but he holds out his arms like he’s a grown-up and can do something to help.

It doesn’t matter that he can’t because Castiel falls forward anyway. He doesn’t make a sound even though he can feel one pulling at his tongue, something wounded and desperate. Dean’s arms come up and hold him close and tight and Castiel hides his face in the other boy’s neck, wets it with his tears and his snot and this pain he can’t seem to hold back.

“Cas,” Dean says, his voice broken and small in Castiel’s ear.

There’s movement around them that Castiel isn’t even aware of until warmth presses in on all sides.

Later, Gabriel will tell Cas about how the whole Winchester family just folded around him and Cas will dimly remember Sammy’s head pressed against his stomach, the sweet smell of Mrs. Winchester’s perfume, and the strength of Mr. Winchester’s arms holding them all up.

Mostly, though, he’ll remember how Dean sounded. Like Castiel’s hurt was his and he would do anything to take it away.

 

_Now_

 

The Mall of America is _huge_. There are rides inside – actual real _rides_ and Cas fails to see the point of them – and a Bubba Gump’s that Jessica and Sam squeal over like thirteen-year-old girls.

“We have to go,” Sam says. “ _Forrest Gump_ , Dean. You loved that movie.”

“I didn’t love it,” Dean says.

“You did,” Cas says. “And you cried at the end.”

The tips of Dean’s ears turn red and he frowns. “Yeah, well, _you_ wouldn’t quit yelling at the screen at the end of _Titanic_.”

“There was room on that door for two people, Dean,” Cas says, some of his residual anger over the whole thing creeping into his voice.

“That’s what I said!” Sam practically yells, and he and Cas huddle together and start bitching about how Rose was just selfish and Jack’s death was completely unnecessary.

Dean and Jess roll their eyes at each other and drag their companions into the restaurant where Sam and Jess spend the whole time smiling like goofs while Cas and Dean laugh at what total dorks they are. They all make faces at the prices on the menu but the food smells delicious and Jess pulls out the digital camera. She gets a picture of their plates and then one of Cas smiling and Dean shoving food into his mouth. She loops an arm around Sam’s shoulder for the last one and tugs him in close. Their cheeks press together, stretched with the force of their smiles, and she snaps the picture.

 

_Then_

 

Sam gets drunk and tells Jessica all about The Winchester Brothers’ Totally Radical Road Trip Across America.

She bursts into giggles and asks, “What? Who named that?”

“Dean,” Sam says with a wide, sloppy grin. “He was in love with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”

While Jessica’s still laughing, Sam explains that one day they’d dug their dad’s old map of the continental U.S. out of storage and started planning. It had mostly been Dean picking out all the places they had to go with Sam offering up occasional input like, “The beach!” and “Disneyland, Dean, _Disneyland_.”

They put little star stickers on all the cities they had to visit – Anaheim and Chicago (“Pizza, dude!”) and New York and Atlanta and Los Angeles and Las Vegas and Austin. Most of the places had no real meaning to either of them except they knew they wanted to visit them before they were old and boring adults and there was no one either of them would rather see these places with than each other.

As they got older they started thinking of ways to make their dream a reality but then Dean’s hobbies shifted to things like girls and football and he left Sam in the dust for a while there. Their relationship got a little rocky after he graduated and Sam and Dad started fighting more and more. By the time they patched it up, Mom was sick and then Dad got laid off and now they’re both more like the grown-ups they didn’t want to become than the kids they used to be.

“We haven’t even talked about that stupid map in years,” Sam says.

Jessica’s quiet and Sam nudges her with his foot to get her attention.

“Earth to Jessica, come in Jessica, do you copy?”

She blinks and then looks over at him with a smile on her face that reminds Sam too much of how Dean looks when he thinks he’s come up with some genius idea that’s probably just going to get them all arrested.

“You should do it,” she says.

“Do what?”

“The Winchester Brothers’ Totally Radical Whatever Whatever,” she says.

“What?”

“God, you get stupid when you’re drunk,” Jessica says. “Take the road trip!”

In a way, Sam knows that’s exactly what he wanted to hear. He’s drunk and sure sometimes he tells Jessica things he doesn’t mean to, but he honestly wouldn’t have brought up the road trip if he hadn’t been thinking about it non-stop for weeks now. Apparently he was just waiting for someone to tell him it’s more than just a stupid boyhood fantasy.

On the other hand, there’s no way they can do it. Not with Mom and Dad and everything.

“Not feasible,” Sam says.

Jessica flops over onto him, all five hundred feet of her, and digs her fingers into his side until he’s breathless with laughter, all the while crowing, “Never say never!” so loud she’s probably woken up at least three of Dean’s neighbors.

“Okay, okay, okay,” Sam says, pushing at her hands. “But even if we _could_ , Dean wouldn’t leave Cas behind.”

That’s enough to get Jessica to roll off of him, a pensive look on her face.

“True,” she says.

“And,” Sam goes on, tongue loosened by alcohol and residual laughter, “I wouldn’t really want to leave you.”

The smile that blooms on Jessica’s face is a hundred different shades of beautiful and Sam wishes, _God_ he wishes, that he could turn into her and press his lips to hers. That’s not a line they’ve ever crossed, though. Best friends since preschool usually don’t, Sam imagines, and it’s his own fault for falling in love with her in the first place.

“We could go,” Sam suggests.

Jessica raises an eyebrow. “Without Dean? You’d leave him out of the Winchester Brother’s Super Awesome-”

“Totally Radical.”

“- Whatever Whatever?”

She has a point. As much as Sam would love to go away with Jessica, he can’t take a road trip without Dean. It was their dream first.

“But he might not even want to do it,” Sam points out.

Jessica pushes to her feet. “So let’s ask him!”

She’s halfway to Dean’s bedroom door before Sam scrambles to his feet.

“Are you serious?”

“What?” she asks, looking over her shoulder. “It’s not like they’re fucking.”

Sam mulls that over and realizes he can’t argue that. Dean and Cas have been disappearing behind closed doors together since they were kids and Sam’s never interrupted anything more embarrassing than a Patrick Swayze marathon.

Jessica gives the door a cursory knock and then swings it open. The only light is the glow coming from Dean’s laptop screen and it takes Sam’s eyes a few seconds to adjust. When he does, he notes that Dean’s got his laptop resting on his belly and Castiel’s head on his chest so they can both see whatever movie they’re watching. Judging by the dialogue Sam catches a snippet of before Dean clicks to pause it, it’s _Star Wars_ again.

“Sam told me about the Winchester Brothers’ Super Fabulous Road Trip To Everywhere,” she says without preamble.

That startles a laugh out of Dean. “Did he actually call it that?”

Sam sighs. “ _No_ , she keeps getting it wrong.”

Jessica shrugs, shameless, and Dean grins. “It’s the best idea ever, right?” he asks her.

“Yes! And Sam and I were thinking-”

“ _You_ were thinking.”

“- that we should do it!”

Dean looks from her to Sam who shrugs, helpless in the face of his best friend’s enthusiasm. And then his eyes dart down to Castiel who’s listening to the whole conversation with a bemused expression on his face.

“All of us?” Dean asks, looking back at Sam.

Sam can’t help glancing over at Jessica. Sometimes he wonders if he looks at her the same way Dean looks at Cas, like he’s found the one thing in his life that was missing and he doesn’t ever want to lose it again.

“All of us,” Sam confirms.

Dean looks down at Cas again and asks, “What do you say? Want to take a road trip with me, my geeky brother, and his hot lady-friend?”

Jessica rolls her eyes and kicks the edge of the mattress while Cas turns the question over in his head and then smiles.

“Yes,” he says.

 

_Now_

 

The world’s largest ball of twine “rolled by one man” is ensconced in a gazebo made out of Plexiglas and wood.

“Is it everything you dreamed it would be?” Dean asks.

Next to him, Cas has his head cocked to the side like he can’t make sense of why this is even a thing in existence. Sam’s kinda with him on this one.

“No,” Jessica says, and the morose look on her face is a perfect match to Dean’s. “I kinda thought it’d be bigger.”

 

_Then_

 

Word about the fight travels fast through the halls of the high school and Dean abandons all plans of hooking up with Cassie in the drama classroom in favor of sprinting to the parking lot. It’s pretty much over by the time he gets there but there’s still a crowd of students standing in a tight ring that he has to shove his way through.

It’s Gordon – of fucking _course_ it’s Gordon – standing over Cas’ body.

The phrase “seeing red” doesn’t even come close to describing the pure, unfettered rage that floods Dean’s body. It overtakes the blood flowing in his veins and clouds his vision. For a brief moment he’s sure he’s going to lose it completely and just launch himself at the asshole that hurt his best friend. Instead, a strange calm follows the initial pulse of emotion and it goes from white-hot to ice-cold in a matter of seconds.

“Walk away from him _right now_ ,” Dean says, pushing past the last gawker in his way.

Gordon looks up and a pleasant smile crosses his face, like he’s happy to see Dean, like they’re buddies or something.

“I was wondering how long it’d take for you to come running to your girlfriend’s rescue,” he says. “And I dragged his beating out as long as I could, too.”

Cas gives a low groan from the ground and Dean wants nothing more than to break Gordon’s face and make sure his friend’s okay. But he stands his ground. Gordon wants something and chances are high that Dean’ll just end up playing right into it.

“If I have to repeat myself,” Dean says, “I’m gonna be pissed.”

“You’re already pissed,” Gordon says. “And I’m not scared of you or your temper tantrums.”

The problems with Gordon are numerous and everyone knows to steer clear of him. Dean may have racked up his own impressive number of detentions and maybe he’s been driven home by Sheriff Mills a few more times than most, but everyone knows Dean’s pretty much harmless. He doesn’t mind it; an approachable bad boy is better than a borderline sociopath, which is definitely the category Gordon falls into.

Dean doesn’t even know how he and Cas got on this guy’s bad side. He’s two grades above them and three years older. They shouldn’t even register on his radar, being the lowly sophomores that they are. And yet Gordon took notice of Dean early on in their freshman year and when Dean realized he’d caught the attention of the school’s very own psychopath, he cut ties quick.

Since then, Gordon’s set his sights on Dean and Cas. He picks on Cas more because he’s the easier target. He can take care of himself in a fair fight, sure, but Gordon never fights fair and Cas is smaller than he is and more likely to turn the other cheek than Dean and he’s . . . .

Well, he’s not what anyone in this town would consider normal, what with the way he talks sometimes and the clothes he wears when Dean’s not around to dress him down a little and the fascination he has with actually learning shit.

Dean would be the first one to admit that Cas is a weird, nerdy little dude with a staring problem, but he’s _Dean’s_ weird nerdy little dude and that’s the more important point.

“Man, I’m tellin’ you I will fuck you the _fuck up_ if you don’t step away from him.”

“I’d really like to see that, Dean,” Gordon says, and the weird thing is he sounds like he _means_ it.

Dad’s talked about guys he fought with in the war or came across when he was young and stupid, the kind who don’t have any good in ‘em. He says there’s no son of a bitch scarier than a man with no fear and nothing to lose. As many times as Dean’s heard the stories he never figured some nobody high school senior would fit into that category.

Somehow, Gordon does. It hits Dean in that moment, with his peers packed in around him like the crowd at a heavy metal concert and Cas rolling carefully and slowly to his feet, that the only way to get Gordon to fuck off and leave them alone is to beat him at his own game. In this case, the only way Dean knows how to do that is to give Gordon a beating he won’t be able to forget.

“You okay, Cas?” Dean asks without even looking at him.

“I’ll live,” Cas says.

His voice is rough and stretched thin over the pain he must be feeling. When Dean darts a glance over it’s to the sight of Cas with an eye already swelling shut and blood still dripping steadily from his nose. It makes the rage bubble up in Dean’s gut again.

Chances are they have a maximum of five minutes before one of the teachers or Principal Ballard herself come to break it up, but Dean’s never shied away from a fight before. He’s pretty confident he can teach Gordon a lasting lesson in five minutes.

“What I don’t get,” Dean says, “is why you like picking on me and Cas so much. But I have this theory, Gordon.”

Gordon raises his eyebrows and says, “Do tell.”

Dean grins, forces the fury down so he can call up the arrogance he wears like a second skin.

“You’re jealous,” he says. “I remember how you used to follow me around, all those dates you asked me on. But I just wasn’t interested and you’ve been pining for a piece of this sweet ass ever since.”

It happens too quickly for Dean to anticipate. One second Gordon’s just staring at him and the next his suckerpunch has knocked Dean back two steps. Pain blooms hot and immediate in Dean’s jaw but a rush of satisfaction follows. This is pure self-defense, now.

Gordon’s a bully who relies on cheap shots to win his battles. Chances are the decent punch that Cas got in was followed quickly by being tripped and knocked down from behind. That’s how cowards like Gordon work. But if they’re doing this, and they definitely _are_ , it’s gonna be on Dean’s terms. Gordon tries to take advantage of having Dean off-balance by darting forward, but that’s exactly what Dean was waiting for. He shifts his weight onto the balls of his feet, just like his dad taught him when they used to sneak lessons in behind Mom’s back.

As soon as Gordon’s close enough, Dean levels him with a punch straight to the mouth. The split on Gordon’s lip widens, the blood deep crimson and shiny against his dark skin. Gordon looks shocked which is all Dean needs to step in close and punch him again and again. It doesn’t feel as good as Dean thought it would, but he thinks about Cas and the months and months of shit Gordon’s put them through and knows it has to end.

Gordon finally gets his arms up to protect his face, but Dean’s got the upper-hand and he doesn’t give a single inch, not until Gordon’s fallen right onto his ass and doesn’t look like he’ll be able to get up any time soon.

Dean’s breathless but not gasping for air like Gordon. From this angle, the guy’s unbelievably pathetic.

“Told you I’d fuck you up. I’ll do it again if you don’t back off.”

“I’ll kill you,” Gordon says with such calm, quiet assuredness that Dean almost believes him, “you freaky, fucking faggot.”

The crowd’s reaction is eclipsed by a woman’s voice barking Gordon’s name. Dean turns to see Cas standing next to the diminutive figure of Principal Ballard. It’s rare that she looks anything other than stern – Dean’s seen her smile maybe twice in the last year and a half – but he’s never seen an expression like this on her face. It’s a combination of disappointment and anger and something else, something Dean really can’t even find a word for.

Somewhere, he realizes distantly, this all got way out of hand.

“My office, Mr. Walker,” she says. “Mr. Winchester, please get Mr. Novak to the nurse’s office and then come see me.”

Gordon looks like he wants to bolt but he gets to his feet and shoves past Dean as he follows Principal Ballard through the lingering gawkers toward the school.

“Dean,” Cas says, quiet and suddenly at his elbow.

Dean never noticed him move but then he’s also somehow missed the fact that he’s shaking until just now. It’s easy to blame it on the adrenaline and not on what Gordon said, what he _did_ , but deep down Dean knows the truth.

“We need to get you cleaned up,” Dean says.

If he focuses on taking care of Cas, he can shove the rest of everything away and deal with it later. Or never, preferably. But Cas isn’t some damsel in distress and he’s always been just as concerned with looking after Dean as Dean’s always been with looking after him.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Cas says.

They start off toward the school, walking closely enough that Dean can feel the heat from Cas’ body and take comfort in it.

“I kinda did,” Dean says.

The cops arrive sometime later, about five minutes after Dean’s mom bursts into the nurse’s office with her hair thrown up in a haphazard ponytail and her eyes seeking out Dean and Cas to make sure they’re okay. It’s another hour or so before anyone even gets in touch with Cas’ uncle, but his cousin Gabriel comes to sit with him for a while.

Dean watches them from across the lobby outside of Principal Ballard’s office. Gabe’s usually a dick and Dean’s not really all that fond of him or any of Castiel’s relatives, but for once he’s acting like the mature college student he definitely isn’t, more like a big brother than the extended relative and pain in Cas’ side he’s always been.

There’s still blood on the neck of Castiel’s shirt and Dean catches himself staring at it, his stomach tight with all the what ifs and what nows that hover in the air like a toxic gas. But every few minutes Cas will look up and roll his good eye or manage a small smile and another feeling expands deep inside, something familiar and bright and terrifying.

 

_Now_

 

There are billboards every forty miles or so proclaiming the magical wonder of Moab, Utah.

“It’s a bunch of rocks,” Dean says as they zip past yet another advertisement for all the fun that can be had in what is probably the otherwise dead city of Moab.

“They’re natural arches,” Sam says in his bitchiest tone.

“Yeah. You hike ‘em,” Jessica adds.

Cas glances sideways to share a look with Dean. Their companions sound entirely too excited at the prospect of a few hunks of sandstone for them to just cruise past without stopping. It’s a little bit of a detour but they make it to Moab early the following morning and, because Jess and Sam want to climb some rocks, they climb some fucking rocks.

As soon as they get parked, they start to notice the red, sweat-drenched faces of the people around them. And it’s not just out-of-shape tourists, either. As they get closer to their chosen trail, young people in workout gear return from their own hikes looking like they want to keel over.

“This is a terrible idea,” Cas says, watching in fascination as a red-haired jogger bends over at the waist and sucks in deep breaths.

“Yep,” Dean agrees.

“Stop bitching and let’s do this!” Jess calls over her shoulder.

Sam shoots them both a grin and they set off, the sun slowly crawling ever higher. They’re dripping sweat after ten minutes but Jess and Sam find the entire experience invigorating. The views are beautiful, it’s true, and for a pair of hardcore gym-bunnies like them it’s definitely an improvement over the half-dozen boring tourist traps they’ve already fallen victim to.

For a couple of guys who only work out when they have _literally_ nothing better to do, it’s torture. But cresting the top of the trail and being welcomed by a panoramic view of the rest of the park and the accomplished smiles Sam and Jess share with them almost make it worth it.

But only almost. They still have to hike all the way back down.

“You owe us so much beer,” Dean says.

Jess just whips out the camera and tells him and Cas to smile. They stick their tongues out at her instead.

 

_Then_

 

Sam knows the words are out of line as soon as he says them, but he can’t take them back so they just hang in the air like lurid, neon letters spelling out what an asshole he is.

“Fuck you,” Dean says.

By all rights, his voice should be full of anger. He should punch Sam in the mouth or shove him into the wall. Anything. Instead he sounds hurt, like someone’s just hit _him_. Worse, like someone’s just punched his best friend right in front of him.

In some way, one that’s completely metaphorical, Sam thinks he may have done just that. And he can’t stop himself from making it worse.

It’s been like this for months. For years, maybe. Sam can blame his parents’ separation and Dean’s failed attempt at college and his stupid fucked up family all he wants and he does. He does it all the time. But he knows better. Dean’s told him time and again. Mom raised you better than this, Sammy, and this is how you want to thank her? It’s not. Sam wants to get good grades and be in the school play and win soccer championships. He wants to make his family proud and he wants to do something amazing with his life but he feels trapped by a father who fixes cars for a living and a brother set to follow in his footsteps and a mother who does nothing but stay at home all day.

He’s so mad all the time and he can’t help it. No matter what he does, it doesn’t go away. Right now he should be full of shame, he should be apologetic. Instead something blistered red and hot and horrible ruptures in his mouth and he takes those words hanging between him and his big brother and he twists them up even more, adds to the awful picture they paint.

“He deserves better than you, you know that, right?” Sam says. “He deserves a best friend who isn’t a loser and a coward who’s so obsessed with being the man his dad wants him to be that he can’t even admit-”

“Stop it, Sam.”

It’s an order. It’s a plea. It’s Dean looking at Sam with his fists clenched at his sides telling his little brother without a word that he won. It’s a surrender.

Sam doesn’t want surrender. He wants a fight.

“-that he’s been in love with the same guy for _ten fucking years_ and that guy’s too smart to love him back.”

The pain in Sam’s jaw doesn’t compare at all to how much it hurts to see Dean’s face, visibly wounded behind the mask of resentment he wears. None of it can compare to the resigned slump to his brother’s shoulders after he draws his fist back, like he knows what Sam has to say is rooted in facts he has yet to let himself face.

Or maybe he has. Maybe these are things Dean tells himself all the time.

“You might be right,” Dean says. “Hell, you probably are. But you think you’re different from me and you’re not. Look at yourself, Sammy. You’re _not_.”

He walks out and leaves Sam alone. It’s how he’d wanted it before, why he’d started an argument in the first place. Now he’s left to think about what Dean had to say and acknowledge that maybe the reason he’s so furious all the time is because Dean’s right and Sam can’t think of anything worse than becoming something he so desperately doesn’t want to be.

 

_Now_

 

Some dipshit named Brady or Bryce tries to sell them a timeshare in San Diego. It’s Sam’s idea to go to the presentation because why pay full price for tickets to anything if listening to a timeshare spiel will get them a discount? There’s no real reason to argue with this logic, but that’s before the four of them stay up way too late making their way through a bottle of whiskey and a _Die Hard_ marathon.

The presentation itself takes place about a mile away from their hotel at the luxurious home-away-from-home that could be theirs by the end of the day. That’s how the woman with the too-loud voice and Dolly Parton-esque hair describes it, anyway.

“It looks like a hotel,” Jessica says under her breath.

Her mouth’s full of half-chewed egg when she speaks while this might not be extremely disgusting on a normal day, no one’s stomach is really prepared for the sight and Sam, Dean, and Cas all groan and slam their eyes shut.

Dean’s on his fourth breakfast turnover when a tall, good-looking blond guy approaches them with a smile that he seriously needs to turn down a few watts.

“And how are we today?”

And that’s how the nightmare starts. After listening to Brady-or-Bryce explain the not-so-numerous benefits of owning approximately seven days’ worth of a room in this glorified hostel for almost two hours, they’re dragged on a tour where Sam not-so-discreetly pukes in a bathroom that may or may not be connected to the building’s working pipes. After the tour they’re dragged back downstairs and, for whatever reason, Brady-or-Bryce seems to think he might still make a sale on this. Meanwhile, all anyone wants is for this guy to shut the fuck up and give them their tickets to Seaworld.

“So what do you say?” Brady-or-Bryce asks after an extremely drawn-out summary of his extremely drawn-out presentation.

His Colgate smile probably tends to charm desperate women (or men, Cas and Jessica have caught him eyeing the breadth of Sam’s shoulders a few times) right out of their underwear. It just makes Dean want to punch him and Sam want to take a shower.

“How do we collect our tickets to see Shamu?” Castiel asks.

“Yeah, I’m hoping we get the chance to see that crazy bastard try to drown somebody,” Dean says.

Brady-or-Bryce’s smile freezes in place. It makes him look like the poster-child for constipation.

“And I could use another cup of coffee,” Sam adds, the picture of innocence.

“Me, too,” says Jess.

They all look on as Brady-or-Bryce tries to find his words.

 

_Then_

 

“Jessica says we’re gonna get married someday.”

It’s Saturday morning and they’re both tucked onto the couch watching Saturday morning cartoons while Mom and Dad sleep in. They’ve been doing this since Dean was old enough to look after Sammy for a couple of hours and now that Sam’s seven and can make breakfast for himself, Dean wonders if maybe this will all go away soon.

He hopes not. Sam can be annoying sometimes, but this is a tradition.

“You’re still babies,” Dean says, lofty from the other side of an age that requires more than ten fingers to hold up. “And girls always say that stuff.”

“Yeah,” Sam says, “but it’s Jess. She doesn’t just say stuff.”

Dean thinks about it for a minute while he spoons another mouthful of Frosted Flakes into his mouth.

“Well,” he says. “Do you _want_ to marry her?”

“Sure,” Sam says, doesn’t even have to pause. “She’s my best friend. We like the same movies and cartoons. She likes books. And,” he adds, voice going quiet, “she’s really pretty.”

Dean’s never thought much about it, but he figures these are all good reasons to marry somebody. Besides, Sam and Jess will probably grow out of it. That’s what Dad said, anyway, when Dean once wondered out loud if he and Cas could get married someday.

“Two boys can’t get married,” Dad had said. “You’ll both find nice girls and marry them.”

“But I’d rather marry Cas,” Dean said.

Dad had laughed and told him, “You’ll grow out of that.”

That had been years ago and nowadays Dean doesn’t really care about getting married. It seems like a hassle and anyway, Dean’s never met a girl he likes half as much as Castiel. If he ever does, he figures he’ll want to marry her right on the spot and there won’t be any questions or weirdness or anything. It’ll just happen and then it won’t be a big deal anymore.

“So marry Jessica,” Dean says. “I like her. She’s funny.”

“And then you can marry Cas!” Sam says, like it’s the greatest idea he’s ever had. “You should marry your best friend, too, Dean. It’s perfect.”

Dean rolls his eyes and ignores the squirmy feeling in his tummy.

“Boys can’t marry other boys,” Dean says.

But he kinda wishes they could.

 

_Now_

 

They unearth Dean’s stash in Los Angeles, parked near a quiet beach somewhere off the tourist map. Cas finds the long, tin box hiding in the trunk when they’re digging around for their towels and pins Dean with an unimpressed look.

“What?”

Cas pulls the box out and gives it a shake. Dean rolls his eyes and snatches it away.

“I was gonna share,” he says. “I’ve just been saving it for the right time.”

Jessica spots the box and snatches it out of Dean’s hands, popping the lid and grinning when the sharp, earth-sour smell reaches her nose.

“Oh, Dean,” she says, glancing over at him. “You’ve been holding out on us.”

“What?” Sam asks, looking confused and every inch the naïve goober Dean teases him for being. “What’s up?”

They walk the length of the beach until they find a good spot, tucked away from prying eyes but still on the beach. While Dean sits down on the picnic blanket Cas and Sam lay out, Jess kicks off her sandals and runs for the water. She stops just short of actually diving in, jogging out until her calves are submerged.

“C’mon, Sammy!” she yells. “It’s _awesome_.”

Local watering holes and swimming pools can’t compare to the grandeur of the ocean, and none of them have ever seen it before. Sam makes his way over but Cas sits next to Dean and watches him, instead, as he opens the box and sets himself to the familiar task of packing a bowl.

This isn’t something they do often back home, was never more than an occasional thing in high school for Dean and something he and Cas picked up with more frequency in college. Some kids bonded over this, Dean knows. It’s how he met Ash, how he first hooked up with Lisa, how Cas and Gabriel found a steadier common ground. It didn’t start anything between Dean and Castiel, but they both like that they can share it for unique and secret reasons.

Cas gets the first hit and the smell intensifies, never truly _good_ but pleasant all the same. He hands the pipe back to Dean and tilts his head back to blow a thick stream of smoke up into the smoggy sky. Dean gets in a hit of his own before Jessica sprints over, Sam tugged along behind her, and hits her knees while making gimme hands.

“Seriously?” Sam says, eyeing her like she’s something new and alien.

Jessica just grins at him and then sets that smile to the opening of the pipe and takes a hit.

“Sam’s a virgin,” she says, her words tight with the effort it takes for her to hold the smoke in her lungs.

Dean falls over laughing and Sam scowls at him and then at Cas and Jess for good measure, even though the former doesn’t seem surprised and Jess can’t help looking at him with nothing but fondness.

“It’s a valid lifestyle choice,” Sam says.

“For _nuns_ ,” Dean says, still laughing.

Cas kicks at him and accepts the pipe back from Jess but looks at Sam curiously.

“Would you like a shotgun?” he asks.

Sam blinks. “Um, is that some kind of trick question?”

Jess snickers and bumps his shoulder with hers. “Not a _gun_ gun. If you want to pop your cherry, it’s a good way to do it.”

Dean sits up, then, eyes darting from Sam to Cas. Nobody says anything for a long moment and then Sam shrugs, uncomfortable but curious.

“Yeah, okay,” he says.

Cas smiles at him, the same kind of warm, friendly grin that he only shares with a few people, and then takes a deep hit. He has to hand the pipe and lighter off to Dean, who takes them without looking, his eyes glued to the scene in front of him in morbid fascination. Sam sits still and unsure as Cas crawls closer and leans in, eyebrows lifted in encouragement.

“You put your mouth on his,” Jess says, voice quiet and soothing.

For a moment Sam hesitates and everyone waits for him to change his mind. Instead his eyes slip to half-mast and he closes the rest of the space between them, fitting his lips to Castiel’s. It’s not a kiss, not really, but Dean makes a show of looking away and Jess leans forward like she can eat the sight up with her eyes.

Cas and Sam keep their eyes locked – Cas in encouragement and Sam waiting for cues – and it’s strangely intimate when Castiel finally exhales the smoke into Sam’s mouth. The younger man’s chest expands as he inhales and they part without a sound.

“Keep it in,” Jess says. “Just for a few seconds, then you can breathe.”

Sam nods and a few beats later he breathes out, smoke curling past his lips and dissipating in the air between them. Dean and Jess both applaud and Sam blushes and looks down at his feet, but he smiles anyway.

“Do me next!” Jess says loudly, climbing onto Sam’s lap so she’s within Cas’ reach.

Dean shrugs and hands over the pipe, watching from start to finish this time. They mostly giggle their way through it, though they keep it together long enough to share the smoke between them. Jessica turns her head just enough to exhale into Sam’s face, laughing when he grimaces and tries to twist away.

It shouldn’t be a surprise when Dean turns to Cas and says, “Me next,” but somehow it’s unexpected. Jess and Sam go carefully still, like any sudden movement could be disastrous. Cas’ eyebrows jump up toward his hairline, but he turns into Dean anyway. They’re closer than Cas was to either Sam or Jess; it’ll barely be a reach for them to press their lips together.

If this is a terrible idea, none of them are aware of it. Cas calmly accepts the pipe and lighter from Sam and this time when he smiles, it’s something softer and warmer than anything anyone else has ever been on the receiving end of.

This smile, they all know, is just for Dean.

 

_Then_

 

For years, Dean will remember Meg Masters’ basement as the best place on earth and Castiel will secretly think of it as the worst.

For now it’s loud and packed to the gills with thirteen-year-olds giddy with the excitement of their first boy-girl party. Meg’s parents are supposed to be around somewhere, but they didn’t bat an eye when their daughter closed the door to the basement and they haven’t been around to check in like Castiel promised his aunt and uncle they would. That’s not what has his palms sweaty with nerves. It’s the fact that they’ve gone from being awkwardly split off – boys on one side of the room, girls on the other – to everyone gathered in a loose circle with an empty soda bottle in the middle.

Everyone thinks that Castiel is sheltered, more of a child than any of them even if they’re all the same age. Part of it is because he spends more time reading than he does doing all of the things other boys his age do, but it’s mostly because everyone knows how religious his family is. It’s not something he’s embarrassed by and he doesn’t care much what anyone thinks. He doesn’t even mind that everyone expects him to freak out over a silly kissing game.

All of the things that Castiel should be worried about – the fact that he’s never kissed anyone before and he has no idea what to do and everyone will know if he’s terrible at it – don’t bother him. He’s not comfortable with any of it, but that’s not why he feels slightly sick to his stomach.

A beeping sound gets everyone’s attention and one of the boys jumps up and sprints to the other side of the room. When he yanks the closet door open, Dean’s still got his hands in Bela Talbot’s hair and they’re kissing like it’s the end of an action movie. Castiel’s stomach tightens to the point of physical pain and he looks away, stares at the disembodied head of a deer mounted on the wall across the basement. Dead, glassy eyes stare right back him and even that isn’t half as uncomfortable as the wet smacking sound Dean’s lips make when he and Bela finally pull apart from each other.

Dean ends up in the closet two different times before the other boys decide the game is rigged. Castiel goes in once when Meg spins the bottle and it lands on him. Her grin is wide and wicked and she pulls him into the closet while everyone laughs about how the choir boy is out of his league.

The small space is dark and smells so strongly of mothballs that Castiel wants to sneeze. The urge is shocked out of him by the feel of Meg’s hands on his shoulders. She’s small but warm, almost too hot, and leans in close. The scent of something spicy and floral wafts up from her hair and makes Castiel dizzy.

“You’d better not drool on me,” is all Meg says before she presses their lips together.

Whatever Castiel was expecting, it’s not _this_. He’d always thought a kiss, a real one, would feel like something. There has to be a reason everyone loves it so much, why it’s such a big deal when two people kiss on TV or in the movies. Castiel’s always thought maybe it’d feel like Dean’s fingers in his hair, combing out dead leaves in the autumn or spiking it up with mud after a spring storm or trying to fix it in the winter when it’s been pressed flat by the hats Aunt Rachel makes him wear.

Anytime Dean touches Castiel, his skin flushes warm and there are tingles that race from Dean’s fingertips to every inch of Cas’ body. If kissing’s such a big deal, that’s what it should feel like.

Instead it’s more like the way it feels when anyone else touches him. It’s like Anna’s hand in his while Uncle Zachariah prays, like Jessica Moore poking his cheeks to get him to smile, like any number of inconsequential grazes of a hand against his in the hallway. It’s skin against skin, Meg’s lips softened with balm, her breath warm and sweet like the orange soda they’ve all been drinking. It’s not bad. It’s not good. It’s not anything at all.

Castiel kisses back because it’s what he’s supposed to do and he lets Meg take the lead. She uses her tongue but only a little and it’s weirder than it is intriguing. By the time the door’s yanked open, Castiel’s hands are on Meg’s hips and her lips are still moving over his.

Someone whistles outside and they pull apart. Meg blinks at him and then smiles, softer and shyer than he’s ever seen her.

“You’re really good at that,” she tells him under her breath.

And then, like it never happened, she’s back to being a cool and untouchable girl. She sits back down and leans into Bela. The party dies down not long after that and Castiel and Dean walk home, bundled up in jackets to ward off an early summer chill.

“That was pretty freakin’ awesome, right?” Dean asks.

He’s been trying to get details out of Castiel since he stepped out of the closet but he’s been unsuccessful so far. Castiel doesn’t want to talk about it because he’s scared of what he realized back there with Meg’s fingers hot against the skin of his neck.

Dean tugs Castiel’s hair to get his attention and pinpricks of sensation dig into his scalp and stretch down the length of his spine. It feels like trying to stand on a leg after sitting on it for too long, a shock of sensation. Castiel shudders and shies away from the touch.

“Cas?”

Castiel doesn’t answer because he can’t. He wants to throw up or run away but only because the only thing he wants more than that is to press his mouth to Dean’s and see if it feels different. There’s something wrong with that and Castiel knows it, but it doesn’t stop the wanting.

 

_Now_

 

Sam meets Ruby in Las Vegas. She’s tiny and dark-haired, some strange combination of sweet and dangerous. They’re at a bar just off the Strip, pre-gaming before they attempt to find any place four kids from the Midwest might be able to blend in amongst the glitz and sin, when she approaches them. Somehow she charms her way into Sam’s good graces.

Jessica, Dean, and Castiel are harder to convince but she buys them shots and takes them to a club with a line that wraps around the building where the bouncer smiles at her and sneaks them all in within seconds.

It’s not really Dean or Castiel’s scene, the loud music with its heavy beats and distinct lack of lyrical content. Jessica sways next to them near the bar but her eyes are on Ruby and Sam as they move together on the dance floor. There’s not a spare inch of space between them and Sam’s large hands cradle Ruby’s tiny frame like they belong there.

Three shots and two beers later, Jessica pushes away from the bar and makes her way onto the dance floor. Dean and Cas watch, wondering if she’s going to do something dramatic like punch Ruby or kiss Sam. Instead she stops and turns, arms lifted above her head and body moving to the music in ways go-go dancers dream about.

She beams at Dean and Cas and crooks her fingers at them. They share a look and glance over at Sam, still entwined with Ruby and oblivious to the world. Dean wants to ask Castiel if Jess is okay but he doesn’t. Castiel wouldn’t have wanted to answer honestly if he had.

Instead they follow her out and dance, awkward and laughing at each other and their attempts to look like they belong.

When they spill out onto the street a few hours later, Ruby offers to let them crash at her place. It’s impossible to tell if she’s being deliberately cruel when she pulls Sam into her bedroom after giving everyone else enough blankets and pillows to make themselves comfortable in the living room. It’s not like she pauses long enough to take note of the wounded look on Jessica’s face. It’s not like Jess has any claim on him anyway.

They leave the TV on to drown out any potential noise from the bedroom but Jess steals Cas’ iPod, shoves the earbuds in, and rolls over to face the back of the couch.

“How can two people be so stupid?” Dean asks.

His eyes are on the screen, narrowed down to frustrated slits. Cas stares at his profile for a long moment and then looks away, fixates on a spurt of blood and the choked sounds of someone dying on film.

“I don’t know,” he says.

Behind them, Jess squeezes her eyes shut and listens to someone sing about a wandering mind and the carelessness of running away.

 

_Then_

 

The sight of Mom, thin and pale and tired, always leaves Dean off-balance. The pain of it isn’t as acute as it was the first month or so, the shock all but gone now that it’s been weeks since she gave in and shaved all of her hair off. In Dean’s mind’s eye, though, she’ll always be healthy and young and beautiful and he can never reconcile his memory of her with this new reality.

The disease hasn’t changed her, though. She still has a smile for everyone and, despite everything, her eyes manage to sparkle like the lights on the tree in the living room as they wait for dinner to finish cooking.

Dad’s in the kitchen with Sam and Jess and every now and then there’ll be a clatter of a spoon to the floor followed by a loud curse. Dean would help but everyone knows he’s shit at cooking anything that doesn’t come from a box so he sits with his mom in the living room, watching Charlie Brown discover the meaning of Christmas.

“You know,” his mom says out of the blue, “I don’t even know how you’re doing. Everything’s been so . . .”

She trails off turns to look at Dean. Her eyes are still shining, but this time Dean can see the faint sheen of tears.

“I’m fine, Mom,” Dean says. “I’m good.”

“Honey, I know you and I know you’ll go to your grave telling everyone you’re okay when you’re not, but none of us are fine. It’s okay if you’re not.”

Dean swallows hard and feels the urge to rest his head in his mom’s lap and take all of the comfort she can give. It’s not his place, though, not now. She’s spent his whole life being strong for their family and now it’s his turn. He may be a fuck-up but he can do this much.

“I’m good,” he repeats.

If he stretches for it, he can find the truth in the statement. His parents are back together, he and Sam are talking again, and it’s stupid to say it wouldn’t have happened if Mom hadn’t gotten sick but it might’ve taken a while. She’s doing well, too, responding to the treatment and her prognosis is good. It could be so much worse. There’s no reason for Dean to be anything less than fine.

Mom purses her lips but doesn’t get the chance to say anything before Dad’s shouting that dinner’ll be ready in twenty minutes. That makes his mom’s face fall, her eyes suddenly clouded and sad.

“What’s wrong?” Dean asks, worried.

She waves him off and says, “Oh, nothing. I just miss food.”

Dean’s heard all about Mom’s lack of appetite and inability to keep anything down from Dad. It’s one of those things that Dean almost forgets about until he has to deal with it up close and he chews on his bottom lip for a second before he pulls out a phone and shoots Cas a quick text.

“Is that Cas?” Mom asks, trying to crane her head around to peer at Dean’s phone.

He closes it and shrugs. “Yeah,” he says. “He’s on his way. I just needed him to drop by our place and grab something really quick.”

His mom looks curious but Dean just smiles at her, crooked and nervous, and turns back to the screen. The doorbell rings fifteen minutes later and Dean rolls his eyes. Cas’ manners are so old-fashioned sometimes. He has his own key, it’s not like he can’t use it.

Dean hops up to answer the door and meets his friend’s incredulous stare with a sheepish grin.

“Dean Winchester,” Castiel says in a growl that drags all along Dean’s nerve endings and makes them perk up and pay attention, “I cannot _believe_ you.”

“It’s not what you think!” Dean says.

He pulls Cas into the house and shouts, “Cas is here!”

There’s a chorus of greetings, all of them shouted, and Cas yells back. At least he’s not so buttoned up he can’t say hello the Winchester way.

“Do you have it?” he asks.

Cas rolls his eyes and hands over a small baggie with two perfectly rolled joints tucked inside. They’d smoked the last of them weeks ago which means Cas rolled these himself and Dean could seriously kiss him. Instead he claps a hand against Cas’ shoulder and tucks the baggie into his pocket.

His mom stands up as soon as they step into the living room and Cas walks forward to give her a hug. Of all of them, Dean sometimes thinks the cancer’s affected Cas in ways none of them can comprehend. She may not be his mother but Dean’s family’s been Cas’ family for as long as either of them can remember. Cas has lost a mom once already and sometimes Dean wonders if he’s scared of losing another.

“Cas!” Mom says. “How are you? Did Dean talk you into a haircut? It wasn’t this short last time I saw you, was it?”

“Dean cut it himself,” Cas says with a sigh. “That’s why it looks like this.”

Mom just smiles and reaches up to tousle the jagged strands. “I like it,” she says.

Dean has to cut in before the two of them start chatting it up; they can go on for hours and they don’t have that kind of time.

“I had Cas bring me something,” he says. “Please don’t ground me.”

“You’re twenty-three years old,” she says. “I’m pretty sure that ship has sailed.”

“You say that now,” Cas mutters.

He takes a step back and Dean shifts on his feet before he steels himself and pulls the baggie out. His mom stares at it with wide eyes but doesn’t say anything right away so Dean hurries to explain himself.

“Okay, this is exactly what it looks like,” he says, “but it’s perfect because it’ll help with the nausea and the appetite and the pain.”

“You want to smoke up your _mother_?” Cas says in a strangled whisper.

“It’s Christmas!” Dean whispers back, like that explains everything.

Mom slaps a hand over her mouth and Dean winces, convinced she’s so pissed she’s actually beyond words. And then her shoulders start to shake and his stomach sinks because he’s disappointed her so badly she’s _crying_. He and Cas share a wild, scared look and then she drops her hand and barks out the loudest laugh Dean’s heard in this house in years.

She laughs so long that Dad, Sam, and Jess all poke their heads out from the kitchen to see what’s going on. Dean hides the baggie behind his back and shrugs while Mom’s chuckles slowly fade away. She wipes at her eyes while they return to the kitchen and then nods.

“It _is_ Christmas,” she says.

Which is how Dean and his mother end up sharing a holiday joint in his old bathroom.

“I haven’t done this since college,” she tells him after they’ve passed it back and forth a couple of times.

“That seriously screws with my mental image of you, Mom,” Dean says.

She laughs and they sit in comfortable silence for a while.

“So,” she says when they’ve smoked it nearly all the way down, “Cas. Is that a thing we need to talk about?”

“Nah,” Dean says, easy despite the sudden tightening in his chest.

He thinks he hears his mom mutter that that’s too bad, but he can’t be sure. It’s probably just wishful thinking.

Both of them giggle their way through dinner and Mom admits that she might be a little stoned because Dean gives the best Christmas presents in the middle of asking for Sam to pass the potatoes. His horrified look sends Mom, Jess, and Dean into gales of laughter.

“What, are you high, too?” Sam asks Jess.

“No,” she says. “But oh my God, your _face_.”

They open their gifts after dinner. Mom leans against Dad on the couch, a soft smile on her face, while Sam and Dean pass out the presents. It’s not much but Christmas stopped being about material junk a long time ago. Dean’s got his mom and dad and baby brother all together and smiling. He’s got his honorary little sister modeling the ridiculous earrings Dean got her like they’re couture.

And he’s got Cas, grinning and relaxed and a part of Dean’s family. It can’t get much better than this.

On the way home Cas lets Dean play one of the cassette tapes Dad had given him, passed on to the only son with good taste in music (Sam had punched Dean when he’d said that earlier but it was just the cold hard truth). Dean sings along to the songs he grew up with, each one better than any Christmas carol. Cas is all smiles when they pull into their parking lot and he lets Dean lean against him as they make their way to their apartment.

Someone’s put mistletoe up over all of the doors in their building and Dean blinks up at it as Cas fits his key into the lock and swings the door open.

“Hey,” he says.

Cas looks over in question and Dean points up. He’s not even sure why he brings it to Cas’ attention when it’s just going to make both of them laugh awkwardly before one of them tears it down and puts an end to the weirdness. Cas looks up and he sucks in a breath. When his eyes find Dean’s again, his expression is cracked wide open. Dean sees pure, naked want in the split second it takes for Cas to rein it all in. And then Dean blinks and it’s like it never happened.

A weird sensation takes up space in Dean’s body, shoving all of his organs out of the way until he can’t breathe or move or think. He steps forward and then stops, unsure. The line of Castiel’s mouth softens and his lips quirk up at the corners in the kind of fond, exasperated look he’s been giving Dean since they were kids.

He reaches out a hand and tugs Dean forward by the front of his jacket. Dean’s feet feel like they’ve been dipped in concrete and his heart’s a jackhammer in his chest. Cas’ smile grows into something a little sad and then he leans up and presses his lips to Dean’s cheek, high on the bone and soft as the snow that fell in gentle flurries just hours ago.

“Merry Christmas, Dean,” he says, voice gentle and deep and achingly familiar.

“Merry Christmas,” Dean murmurs back.

Cas ducks his head and then walks into the apartment. Dean watches him go and then looks up at the sprig of mistletoe. He reaches up to take it down and then stops and walks inside instead.

It’ll be fine for a few more hours.

 

_Now_

 

Cas finds Jess sitting at the edge of the motel’s tiny pool with her feet submerged in translucent, green water. It’s abandoned at this time of night and should probably be closed, but the gate’s unlocked and there’s no sign that says it shouldn’t be so Castiel toes off his shoes and sits down next to her.

There are tear tracks on her cheeks and she scrubs at them, tries to erase the echo of her stupid breakdown, but Cas sees. Of course he does. In all the time they’ve known each other, Jessica’s grown convinced that Cas sees everything but what’s most important and sitting right in front of his face. He’s a lot like Sam that way.

“Pro-tip,” she says, inhaling the warm, summer air and blowing it back out on a shaky breath, “Don’t fall in love with your best friend.”

Cas laughs next to her, a small, unhappy burst of sound, and knocks his ankle against hers under the water.

“I’ll have to try harder next time,” he says.

They share a long look and then she scoots closer and leans her head against his shoulder.

“What a bunch of idiots we are,” she mutters.

This time Castiel’s laugh is genuine and Jess can’t help but join in.

 

_Then_

 

Hospitals have no real redeeming quality. The lighting is terrible, the food’s disgusting, and the whole place smells like antiseptic and death. Castiel hasn’t spent much time inside of them but Dean assured him on the way here that they’re terrible places.

There isn’t time for Castiel to decide whether that’s true or not. He has to stop himself from sprinting down the halls, following Gabriel’s instructions and leaving Dean behind no less than three times on the way to the third floor.

“Where’s the fire?” Dean mutters.

Castiel just glowers at him and waits impatiently for the elevator to reach its destination. It’s another journey through the maze-like corridors until they finally turn a corner and see Gabriel at the end of the hall, his face split by a grin that lacks its usual mischief and is nothing but pure, unfiltered joy instead.

“How is she?” Cas asks as they approach.

“She’s great. The eagle has landed,” Gabriel says, “and she’s a beautiful baby girl. All ten fingers, all ten toes, perfectly healthy.”

All the breath rushes out of Castiel’s lungs on a sigh of relief and he glances into the room to see Anna propped up in bed, her red hair tangled and matted with sweat, her face red and blotchy, and the most beautiful smile Cas has ever seen on her face. The baby in her arms is surrounded by blankets but Cas can see just enough – two eyes, a mouth, and a scrunched up nose that slowly loses its crinkle, soothed by the gentle voices of her mother and father.

“She’s amazing,” Castiel whispers.

Gabriel throws an arm around Castiel’s shoulders and pulls him into half an embrace.

“That she is,” he says, the proudest uncle in existence.

They make their way to the waiting room because Castiel doesn’t want to crowd his cousin. Their relationship is stronger now than it was when they were kids, but sometimes he still wonders how he fits in. He’s always felt like the odd one out and with good reason, but they’re all the freaks of the family, now, so he isn’t sure why he still feels so out of place.

“You ever think about it?” Dean asks as they step into the waiting room.

“Having children?” Castiel asks.

They sit down next to each other and their shoulders brush when Dean shrugs.

“Sure. Settling down, propagating the species, whatever.”

Castiel tips his head back and stares up at the flickering fluorescent light above them. It’s not something he lets himself think about because it’s not something he’ll ever be allowed to have. He’s never been able to sustain a relationship because his heart belongs to someone else and that person will never feel the same way. When it comes right down to it, if Castiel can’t settle down and make a future with Dean, he doesn’t want to do it at all. But sometimes he can’t help but wonder what it might be like if he could.

“Not often,” Castiel answers honestly. “But . . . it’s something I’d like. A family.”

Dean makes a soft sound in agreement.

They get to hold Anna’s baby before they leave. Her husband, Jake, is the one who gestures them back to the room. Anna’s dozing when they walk inside and Gabriel has the baby cradled carefully in his arms.

“Anna wanted you guys to meet,” Jake says. “Do you want to hold her?”

Castiel nods and watches the slow transfer of the baby from Gabriel to Jake.

“Uncle Cas, meet Naomi Belle.”

It’s on the tip of Castiel’s tongue to say he isn’t technically an uncle but he’s too busy following Jake’s instructions on how to hold a newborn to mention it. Instead he takes the warm, fragile body of his cousin’s daughter into his hands and holds her close.

Her wide, blue eyes stare up at Castiel without fear or confusion and Castiel can’t help but stare back and drown in the bittersweet happiness that surges through his body.

“Hello, Naomi,” Castiel says.

Dean steps up close, his front pressed all along Castiel’s back, and peers over his shoulder at the baby.

“Hey, gorgeous,” he says, the smile audible in his voice.

And maybe Cas doesn’t let himself think about it often, but in that second he wishes that this is something he and Dean could have.

 

_Now_

 

The drive to the Grand Canyon is rough, the unpaved road pitted and speckled with rocks. Dean grips the steering wheel of the Impala and croons at her while they make their slow way toward what they all hope won’t be the same kind of disappointment as Mount Rushmore (“I just . . . thought it’d be _bigger_ ,” Jess had said, and then they’d gotten someone to snap a group picture of everyone looking distinctly unimpressed).

Jess smothers her giggles into Sam’s shoulder and he keeps looking down at her like he’s never seen her before, something he’s been doing constantly since Ruby and the subsequent twenty-four hours of stilted conversation punctuated by awkward silences. She doesn’t notice but Cas does and he has to hide his smiles behind his hand. It’s about time.

“It’s like they don’t want anyone to see the damn thing,” Dean gripes. “I’m so sorry, Baby. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

“We’ll make sure to give you two a moment alone later,” Cas teases.

Jessica’s laughter bubbles up and out and drowns out the crunch of gravel beneath the Impala’s tires for a few seconds. Dean glares at Cas and then at the pair in the backseat but his hands relax their hold on the steering wheel.

When they finally reach their destination, they find out they have to pay for someone else to drive them up to the actual Grand Canyon and Dean sighs.

“They didn’t charge us to see the friggin’ Hoover Dam,” he mutters, but they fork over the cash and file onto a small bus a few minutes later.

The view is indistinct from the window, a lot of red-orange rocks and dessert shrubs. Occasionally they’ll get a glimpse of the Grand Canyon as they drive to the designated viewpoint but it’s just a flash of the canyon wall or their driver pointing out a famous rock formation. They’re all antsy by the time they get parked and file out into the hot, dry air.

This is it, what they really wanted to see. The ball of twine and the orca and the Bellagio fountain and the Main Street Electrical Parade all had their own unique draws but this is something that ties the four of them together in a way none of the pricey attractions and big city glitz ever could. Like the quiet moment they carved out for themselves on the shore of the Pacific, this is just something _more_.

Sam slips his fingers into Jessica’s as they walk toward the lip of the canyon, Dean and Cas half a step behind.

The view opens up in front of them, first the opposite edge of the canyon and then the face of the wall in all of its shades of red-brown and dust-gray and clay-white and then, finally, the yawning space between. The depth of it doesn’t seem like much until they step closer to the edge of the canyon and peer down. From there it’s miles of outcroppings to the bottom where the muddy river snakes its way through the canyon’s valley.

“Wow,” Sam says, and the others can only echo the sentiment.

There are tourists all around, children climbing rocks and everyone taking pictures, but Sam, Jess, Dean, and Cas stand for a while in their own little world, sweating under the midday sun and breathing in the natural beauty of their surroundings.

Someone wanders by and shakes the moment with a friendly smile and an offer to take their picture. Jess hands over the camera and they stand pressed together despite the heat, their arms overlapping around each others’ shoulders and waists, their smiles bright enough to rival the sun.

 

_Then_

 

The four years after graduation is the longest stretch of time Dean and Cas go without seeing each other since they were kids. It’s weird; when they talked about their plans after high school, Dean never really thought Castiel’s absence would become this physical _hole_ in Dean’s life. They figured they’d see each other for holidays and on breaks. Like everyone else their age, they thought they were supposed to move on from each other in order to grow up.

Dean tries the college thing for a while, staying local because he has no real desire to be anywhere else. It turns out to be a good thing when Dad leaves to stay with Uncle Bobby for a few nights that turn into weeks that turn into a genuine separation. Sammy starts acting out and Mom needs all the help she can get so Dean spends more time trying to patch his family up than he does trying to get his homework done.

Dropping out is inevitable in a lot of ways, not least of which being Dean’s aversion to all things scholastic. He makes a few empty promises to himself and his parents that he’ll go back when the timing’s right, but he knows he won’t. He doesn’t want to.

The problem, though, is that those two years of school helped distract Dean from the fact that Cas is halfway across the country living a life without him. With everything falling apart, there are days Dean just wants his friend back. They talk some, exchanging emails and spending more hours on the phone than is probably healthy. Eventually Dad comments on it in his oblique way, wonders why Dean hasn’t moved on when even his weird little friend Cas was able to.

They talk less after that and it’s Dean’s fault. He ignores the phone when it rings, stops checking his email altogether, and doesn’t bother going to see Cas when he’s in town. It’s not something that ever develops into a fight, though Dean sometimes wishes it would. If nothing else, he’d rather Cas yell at him than just . . . give up.

While Cas studies and makes new friends and starts a brand new life, Dean fixes cars and fucks around with girls he never calls back the next day, the same ol’ shit as always. He becomes the grease monkey bum all his teachers said he would be and he tries not to pay attention to the way Sam looks at him and talks to him, like he’s a substandard human being with no future.

Mom asks after him sometimes and Dean has nothing to tell her. He doesn’t know what Cas is up to, how things are going for him. He doesn’t know if Cas is happy and that becomes a thorn in Dean’s metaphorical paw, turning him surly and morose.

It’s two years before they see each other again and Dean pretends that he isn’t aware of every single second of it, but that’s not how it works between him and Cas. That first summer after they met Dean secretly counted down the months until the next June. The only thing that’s changed since then is that Cas is woven into the tapestry of Dean’s life, now. The brightest threads are all his.

The summer after Cas graduates, Dean gets a call. He doesn’t recognize the number but he answers anyway, curious and hopeful. It’s not the gravelly voice he’s hoping for. He doesn’t even recognize it until the woman on the other line makes a frustrated sound and says, “It’s me, Dean, _Anna_. Cas needs your help.”

Dean hasn’t heard from Anna since she moved out to be with her anti-WASP boyfriend, following the trail Gabriel blazed when he decided to shack up with his Indian girlfriend in a distinctly premarital way. They were never friends, Dean and Cas’ cousins, but they got along okay when they had to. Better than okay the one time Dean and Anna got drunk and stopped just short of fucking one night years ago.

He isn’t sure if he should be more shocked that she’s calling him now or more worried about Cas, but in the end it’s always Cas who wins out. She tells him where Cas is and to hurry. It’s not too late in the day, the sun still hovering high in the sky when Dean yells that something’s up but not to worry and he’ll try and be back by dinner. Whatever Mom yells back at him is lost to the slam of the front door.

It’s a fifteen minute drive to the Adler house but Dean cuts it down to seven and pulls up to the curb, his skin crawling with unease. He’s an adult, now, but the two-story building’s just as intimidating as it was when he was a kid. It may look the same as all the other houses surrounding it – perfectly manicured lawn, carefully painted trimming, a welcome mat on the front porch – but it gives off an unforgiving aura that’s always made Dean uncomfortable.

Whatever’s going on inside hasn’t bled out onto the street. Something about that makes the hair on the back of Dean’s neck stand up. He gets out of the car and marches up to the door, poised to knock, but Castiel’s aunt yanks it open before he even lifts his fist. She doesn’t meet Dean’s eyes as she steps aside to let him in and her shoulders are tight and hunched, probably a direct result of the tension Dean can feel pressing in on all sides.

“Castiel’s a little confused,” she says. “Maybe if you talk to him, explain things . . . and then you should go and not come back.”

What Cas is confused about, Dean has no idea. The guy’s a little slow on the uptake sometimes, but he has a better understanding of the world than most people Dean knows. And who does she think she is, telling Dean to do a job and leave? It’s melodramatic and ridiculous and he’s about to ask for clarification when Mr. Adler’s voice cuts through the house with a shout that Dean could swear rattles the window.

“You’re still a child! You don’t know a damn thing!”

“I’m more of a man than you are,” Cas retorts.

Dean feels the shocked silence reverberate in his bones but he can’t help the swell of pride in his chest.

“That sick, twisted sinner you hang out with has corrupted you, Castiel, but you’re too dumb and blind to see it.”

Zachariah’s voice hovers somewhere between rage and condescension, like he thinks so little of Castiel that he’d rather patronize than yell. Dean’s hands ball up into fists and he really wishes he could punch Cas’ uncle in his stupid, sanctimonious face. It’s not the first time, either, but it’s one of the few where he thinks Cas would actually support the decision.

He prepares to march into that room, grab Cas, and leave, fuck whatever Mrs. Adler wants. But Cas’ words stop him short, hold him firmly to the spot and coat his insides in liquid nitrogen.

“That sinner is my best friend,” Cas says, “and I’ve been in love with him since I was eight years old. There’s nothing corrupt about that, Uncle Zachariah. I _love_ him.”

The sharp sound of a slap jars Dean into movement. He ignores Mrs. Adler’s shocked and disgusted expression and steps into Mr. Adler’s study. Cas has his hand to his cheek but the look on his face is defiant. In that moment, Dean loves him more than he thinks he’s ever loved anyone in his life. Now’s not the time for that, though. There’ll never be a time for it, even though Dean’s mind can’t stop playing Cas’ words on a loop, even though his heart surges with the realization that he could have what he’s always wanted if he’d just reach for it.

“I came to pick you up,” Dean says, at a loss for any words with actual substance.

Cas looks over and Dean can see the worry that he was overheard just before it gives way to relief and happiness.

“If you walk out of that door with him,” Mr. Adler says, face cherry-red and quivering, “you don’t ever come back.”

“I won’t,” Cas promises. “And then who will you have left?”

They file out of the room, Dean hovering close behind Cas like he can protect him from the anger and the ignorance of his family. Like they’re still kids and he’s beating up Gordon Walker just so he’ll never lay a hand on Cas again.

Once they get outside, Dean can feel the question building on Cas’ tongue and he braces himself for it, prepares to lie.

“I thought you weren’t talking to me,” is what Cas says instead.

Dean swallows hard and says, “Anna said you needed help.”

It’s quiet, the only sound the rush of the road beneath the car’s tires. Dean thinks of all the things he could say and everything he’s scared to admit to. With how stilted and strained things are between them, he has to wonder if this is even a thing that can be fixed. It’ll be on him since he was the one who fucked up in the first place, but there are some things he’s better at breaking than putting back together.

“I missed you,” he says eventually. “And I’m sorry I was a dick.”

Cas huffs out a laugh and says, “I missed you, too.”

Dean pauses, afraid to push his luck, but he’s never been able to bite his tongue when he probably should.

“We’ll figure this out. You can stay with us until then. It’ll be like all those sleepovers we had when we were kids.”

A rueful smile twists Cas’ mouth at that. “Are you volunteering to share a bed with me?” he asks.

Dean can feel his cheeks flush hot and he responds with an awkward cough. “It might be a tight fit, now,” he says.

“Yeah,” Cas says. “You can take the couch, then.”

They’re still patching up their friendship when Dean asks Cas to move in with him a few months later, his heart inexplicably in his throat and his palms damp with nerves. Cas says yes, no hesitation or thought necessary, and that sounds a lot like forgiveness to Dean.

 

_Now_

 

“What do we do when we get back?” Jess wonders out loud.

They’re halfway through the Rocky Mountains, stopped for lunch at some kitschy outdoor sandwich shop that’s only open four months out of year. They’ll be back in Kansas by nightfall and home in a day. They’ve been on the road since the middle of June and it feels like a lifetime and the blink of an eye in the same breath.

“Well,” Sam says, “We go back to school.”

“I go back to work,” Dean says.

“I go back to looking for work,” Cas says.

Jess takes a bite out of a crisp, spear pickle and chews for a moment before she says, “Yeah, but what do we _do_?”

No one has a good answer for her. This trip was never about just getting away or experiencing something new or getting a new perspective. Any one of them could’ve done that without bringing the others along.

Dean could’ve hopped in the Impala long ago, driven until he couldn’t see straight, met some leggy brunette who’d never be quite what he was looking for and spent the rest of his life lying to himself about being happy.

Jess could’ve hitched a ride to California by herself, transferred all her credits, paid her way through school by taking her clothes off just like her drunk, useless foster parents always told her she would, and forge a career for herself that would never fill all the people-shaped holes in her life.

Cas could’ve disappeared one day back to the east coast, gotten a job as a teacher somewhere, found some modicum of content despite the string of not-quite-right relationships and the constant dreams of home.

Sam could’ve accepted Stanford’s offer, put his family behind him to try and forge a new life, become a new person, and maybe he’d have enjoyed the challenge and the anonymity and the way so many people looked at him and didn’t see where he’d come from, but it would never have been enough.

In a million different lifetimes the four of them could have sought out these experiences on their own but the results would’ve left them unsatisfied and unhappy. Maybe now they’re heading back to their small town roots, to in-state colleges and a job working on cars and unemployment, but so what?

They saw the goddamn Grand Canyon and they swam in the ocean and somewhere on that camera is a picture of Dean getting a kiss on the cheek from Daisy Duck. They didn’t have to do any of it alone and it’s the shared experience that they’ll take back with them more than the sights and the sounds and the really shitty fast food.

At the end of the day, they could’ve driven twenty miles to the nearest Piggly Wiggly and gone right back home again and it still would’ve been worth it so long as they did it together.

So what do they _do_ now that they’ve accomplished more in the last two months than most people will in their boring, miserable lifetimes?

Any one of them could answer with some variation of: _You tell your best friend that you love him and he tells you he loves you back and you spend the rest of your lives making each other happier than anyone else ever could._ If nothing else, it’s become the unofficial moral to the story.

But that’s something that should simply be _done_ , not talked about or rushed into, so instead Cas says, “I think we just keep moving forward.”

Dean groans and throws a wilted piece of lettuce at his friend’s forehead. “Please tell me you didn’t just quote Walt Disney. I’m surrounded by fuckin’ nerds, I swear.”

Cas flicks a tomato at Dean in retaliation and the afternoon devolves into gales of laughter and a food fight which is just everyone’s way of saying that Cas’ plan sounds like a good one to them.

 

_Then_

 

Three days after his seventeenth birthday, Castiel loses his virginity. It’s not something he’s expecting to happen. He’d come to terms with his sexuality back when Dean had become a regular fixture in his wet dreams so that’s not the issue. It’s just that when he thinks about it, he imagines it happening as a result of his first mature relationship or maybe during the early years of college exploration.

The last thing he anticipates is a one-night fling with someone he barely knows.

Gabriel comes home the last spring break before he finishes up his fifth and final year of college and shocks the entire household. Ever since he left for California, he’s spent spring break on beaches presumably having sex with bikini-clad women. None of them are expecting him back so when he shows up with his roommate in tow, they don’t quite know how to react.

The first thing Gabriel does after his parents give up on their interrogation and leave for a church function is push Castiel at his friend and say, “This is Balthazar. Please feel free to bond over your freaky fucking names.”

Balthazar is taller than Gabriel – not that it’s difficult to find men who are – and leaner. His eyes are a lighter blue than Castiel’s own and sparkle with a humor that quickly reveals itself to be witty and caustic. The clothes he wears look expensive and he has this air about him like he’s better than everyone else either because he’s smart, good-looking, rich, or all three.

Castiel doesn’t really want to talk to him but he has no choice.

“My grandfather named me,” Castiel says, never all that great at easing into conversations with strangers. “He was a theologian.”

Balthazar hums deep in his throat in a pitch that sounds like _that’s_ so _interesting, really_ and says, “My parents wanted to make sure I’d be unique. I’d call it a success. What do you think?”

“I don’t know you,” Castiel says, “so I can’t say.”

Balthazar just grins at him. “I’ll ask again in a week.”

As far as first conversations go, it’s not much and they don’t expand on it after that. Castiel’s still in school and Gabriel likes to keep them both occupied so he doesn’t usually see Balthazar until after dinner; even then their interactions are fleeting. He tells Dean about the arrogant dick his brother’s brought home and Dean just laughs and asks, “How can you even tell them apart?” Castiel doesn’t feel like explaining that one’s obviously his brother and the other has a habit of looking at him with eyes that hold more heat than a late August afternoon.

When they see each other, Balthazar doesn’t say much. Sometimes he’ll tease Castiel about his hair or his clothes and others he’ll ask about Castiel’s day like the question itself is a chore. It’s the looks that he sneaks out of the corner of his eye, the drag of his gaze from the top of Castiel’s head to the pan of his pelvis, that gives away the fact that Balthazar isn’t as aloof as he acts.

Sexual attraction is something Castiel’s familiar with, something he’s gotten used to hiding because it’s not like he can stare at Dean the way he wants to. It’s weird, though, to be on the other side of it. Being the one someone else is attracted to is heady in a way Castiel isn’t expecting, and maybe that’s why he starts to sneak glances of his own.

When it happens, Castiel isn’t sure if he should be as shocked as he feels. Balthazar’s been living just inside his personal space bubble for the last day and a half, never quite touching but always making himself felt. Castiel should be expecting the whole thing to go up in flames one way or the other but he’s still surprised when it does.

Gabriel’s disappeared, gone off to find a good time before he and Balthazar have to go back for that final push toward scholastic achievement. Castiel doesn’t even know Balthazar’s stayed behind until his bedroom door eases open and the older boy steps over the threshold.

“You have absolutely no idea just how sexy you are, do you?” he asks as he shuts the door behind himself.

It’s probably a line. There’s a voice in Castiel’s head, the one that sounds a lot like Dean, laughing at the skeeviness of it. But it works.

It works because Castiel’s a hot-blooded teenager full of raging hormones that he hasn’t gotten the chance to exercise, yet. It works because Balthazar’s voice is smooth and makes the words sound intimate and honest. It works because Balthazar’s here and he’s real and he’s attractive and, most importantly, he wants Castiel. Stupid as it is, Castiel can’t help but wonder if this might be the last time this happens and if so, he knows he’ll kick himself if he doesn’t take advantage of it.

He tells himself that his stupid unrequited feelings for Dean have nothing to do with it, but there’s a good chance that’s a lie. Castiel just pretends he doesn’t care.

When Balthazar kisses him, it’s like Meg all over again but the skin-on-skin contact of their lips is more exciting than that kiss in the closet. If Castiel were capable, he’d laugh at the heavy-handed symbolism of it, but he’s too busy being taken skillfully apart by Balthazar’s hands and mouth and murmured words.

The actual sex hurts – and unexpected ache that makes tears spring to the corners of Castiel’s eyes – and then it’s not so bad, the pain shifting halfway through into something Castiel thinks he could learn to like. When it’s over, Balthazar pats Castiel on the cheek and leaves without a word. That has to be a violation of some rule for first time sex, but what would Castiel know? Even if it is, he tells himself that Balthazar has no idea he just took some kid’s virginity but deep down he knows the truth.

Maybe this is just some hobby of Balthazar’s.

Castiel has zero completed assignments the next day and winces when he walks. Dean casts him weird looks every time they pass in the halls but doesn’t say anything until lunch.

“Dude, you’re walking like you’ve got a stick shoved up your ass and you look like shit. You okay?”

“I’m gay,” Castiel blurts out. “And I had sex last night so I suppose the stick thing isn’t too far off the mark.”

Dean gapes at him, mouth opening and closing like he wants to form words but forgot how. It would be extremely convenient if the floor would just open up and swallow Castiel whole. He’d really rather not have to face down Dean’s shock and disgust.

“Was it . . . I mean, did you like it?” Dean finally asks.

The words are a little choked, but when Castiel peers at his friend he doesn’t see anything even remotely resembling hatred or fear. There’s genuine curiosity and something else beyond that, something that Castiel’s wishful thinking interprets as envy.

“I didn’t _not_ like it,” Castiel finally answers.

“Yeah? Because you look like you regret it. Just let me know if I need to kick this guy’s ass is all I’m saying. You know I’ll do it.”

Castiel smiles and pokes at the Jello on his lunch tray.

“Thanks, Dean,” he says.

“Don’t get all mushy on me,” Dean says.

He shakes his fork at Cas for emphasis, but he follows it up with a wink and that’s enough to make Castiel forget about Balthazar for the rest of the day.

 

_Now_

 

“Wait, wait, wait,” Mary says, breathless with laughter. “Explain _this_ one to me. Why’s he making that face?”

Castiel looks over her shoulder at the picture of Dean with his cheeks stuffed and his eyes wide with terror. Sam and Jess look at each other and burst into laughter so it’s up to Castiel to explain.

“Rocky Mountain Oysters,” he says.

Mary’s eyes widen and she shakes her head. “You _didn’t_.”

“Oh, we did,” Sam and Jess say in unison.

That just sets everyone off and they’re still chuckling as Mary flips to the next picture. It’s the first time they’ve seen them all laid out like this; Jess and Sam have been working on putting together the album since August but they’ve been understandably distracted.

They’re curled up against each other across from the coffee table, arms and fingers entwined. Cas feels a pang of jealousy but it’s tempered by how happy he is for them. Sam catches him looking and smiles in that way he has, like he knows just what Cas is thinking and wants to reassure him that everything’s going to be okay.

“Oh, please tell me you bought these hats,” Mary says.

Her eyes are on a picture of Sam, Dean, and Jess mugging for the camera in Mickey Mouse ears, the Mad Hatter’s top hat, and what they could only assume was supposed to be the headwear for Rasta Goofy.

“We got the ears,” Sam says. “But Jess and Dean were hungry so we had to save our cash for churros.”

“And they were _delicious_ ,” Jess says.

“Did you sit through another time share presentation for the Disneyland tickets?” Mary asks, still amused that they suffered through one just to get a picture of Cas petting a manta ray that Dean named John Wayne.

Sam shakes his head and tells her about Andy, the Disneyland employee who fell in love with their car on Monday night and got them into the park Tuesday morning just because they let him ride around Anaheim with them until the sun rose. They’d all been pretty fried but it was nothing a shitload of energy drinks couldn’t cure.

Castiel listens with half an ear while Mary turns the page and then sucks in a breath at the first picture he sees. It must’ve been taken by Sam or Jessica but it’s not one that they showed Castiel on the boring drive back home.

It’s from that day at the beach, sometime after Castiel blew a stream of smoke into Dean’s open mouth and felt the first bare brush of their lips together. They’d been just the right kind of high, giddy and giggly and weightless. After they’d gotten everything put back into Dean’s tin box they’d all made a beeline for the water, stripping off their clothes as they’d gone.

Castiel and Dean are shirtless in the picture and Cas has his head tipped back on a laugh. He doesn’t remember what had just happened but he does remember being ridiculously happy in that moment. None of that is what stops him short, though. It’s Dean, the way he’s smiling at Castiel like he’s best gift anyone’s ever given him.

“I like this one,” Mary says, brushing her fingers over the picture.

There’s a lump in Castiel’s throat, painful and hard and he can’t swallow it down.

“Please tell me you haven’t brought out the baby albums again, Mom.”

The sound of Dean’s voice directly behind him makes Castiel jump and his heart picks up a too-quick drumming in his chest.

“Nope,” Mary says, craning her head back to give Dean a smile. “Did you know there’s a picture in here of you with a mouth full of bull testicles?”

Dean glares over at Sam and Jess. “I will kill you both and make it look like an accident.”

They just grin at him. “You love us too much,” Jess says.

It’s not a fact Dean can argue so he just drapes an arm over Cas’ shoulder and leans over his shoulder to look at the album open between him and Mary. It gets quiet as Dean looks at the picture from the beach and Castiel feels the urge to run and hide.

“That’s a good one,” Dean says, like he doesn’t notice how he only has eyes for Castiel, like love isn’t written all over his face for the whole world to see.

“My boyfriend’s an awesome photographer,” Jess says, punctuating the statement with a chaste kiss.

Dean groans and says, “You guys are so gross. Dinner’s ready,” he adds. “Dad’s gotten really good at this Christmas spread but I don’t care how much cheese you put on it, broccoli’s still broccoli.”

“What did vegetables ever do to you, Dean?” Sam asks.

“They exist, Sammy,” Dean tells him.

Dean stays close to Castiel as they make their way from the living room to the kitchen but that’s nothing new. They’ve been virtually inseparable for years and Castiel’s always been the exception to Dean’s strict rules about personal space. The picture was probably just a fluke, a combination of the weed and the sea air making Dean into something more affectionate and open than normal. Castiel forces himself to put it out of his mind while they settle in for dinner and after, when they exchange gifts, he tries not to stare at Jessica and Sam and Mary and John and wallow in the hollow ache that pulses deep inside.

They all linger well into the night, until after they’ve shared second slices of pie and John and Mary have started to yawn. By the time they’ve said their goodbyes, Castiel’s almost forgotten about the sudden spike of weirdness that clouded part of the evening. He thinks maybe it’s over and done with while he and Dean drive home, the radio just loud enough to be background noise but not so loud that it upsets the calm.

There’s no mistletoe above the door this year and Castiel notes the way Dean’s eyes flick upward and then back down, his expression giving nothing away. Inside their apartment is warm and a little festive, nothing like Mary and John’s house but Castiel and Dean had fun with lights, an old wreath, and the Charlie Brown-like Christmas tree they found on sale at Walmart. They’d agreed to give each other their presents here instead of at Dean’s parents’ place just because it became a tradition between them when they had to spend the holiday at separate homes and would meet up later in one of their bedrooms to share their gifts in private.

“Rock-paper-scissors?” Dean asks as they shrug off their coats and toe off their shoes.

“You’ll just lose,” Castiel says. “You can open mine first.”

He walks over the tree and grabs the carefully wrapped package sitting next to the blob of tissue paper that must be his own gift. The sight of it makes Castiel smile and he turns around to find Dean right behind him, so close it takes Castiel’s breath away.

“Here,” he says, trying to ignore the effect Dean’s proximity has on him.

Dean takes the gift and tears into the paper with all the excitement of a toddler.

“Cas,” he says, his voice flat. “You got me books.”

He says it like there’s been some kind of mistake and Castiel kicks lightly at his shin. “Open them.”

Each one is a battered copy that Castiel found at a used bookstore, the covers soft and faded, the pages more like fabric than paper. The one on top is a personal favorite, something Dean won’t recognize right off-hand, but he flips it open and his eyes immediately find the notes Castiel’s scribbled in the margins. He reads through an entire page of them, the corners of his mouth lifting higher and higher with each one. After he finishes, he moves that book to the bottom of the pile and blinks at the next cover that greets him. This time he doesn’t just open to a random page; he starts at the beginning and reads Castiel’s note and then flips to the first page and thumbs over the handwriting scrawled across the bottom.

There’s one more book beneath that and he flips through this one quickly before he shakes his head and looks at Castiel with something akin to awe.

“ _A Clockwork Orange_ and _Lord of the Flies_ , huh?”

Castiel shrugs and fights the urge to squirm under Dean’s gaze.

“They’re your favorites. _Thief of Time_ is one of mine. I know it’s not much.”

Dean smiles and looks down at the books in his hands, cradling them in his palms like they’re precious and priceless.

“Nah, they’re perfect,” he says. “You next,” he adds, nodding at the last gift under the tree.

The tissue paper crinkles in Castiel’s hands when he picks up his present. There’d been a Christmas years ago where Dean had actually made an effort with his wrapping but somehow it had turned out worse than just throwing his gifts in a bag or taping them up in newspaper so he stopped trying. Everyone teases him for it, Castiel included, but there’s something sweet about it.

The flimsy paper gives easily under Castiel’s fingers and falls to the floor with a rustle as he rips it away.

“It, uh, it kinda looks like crap,” Dean says in a rush. “I had no idea what I was doing and the tutorial I found was really confusing so I know it doesn’t look like anything special but-”

“Dean,” Cas interrupts. “Shut up.”

That’s enough to get Dean to snap his mouth shut and just let Castiel appreciate the journal in his hands. If Castiel had to guess, he’d say that Dean bound the pages together by hand. None of them match exactly, pressing against the cover that holds them in as if they’ve already been stuffed full. Castiel runs his fingers over the ragged edges of paper while he stares at the cover, an uneven collage of pictures that Dean must have taken over the years on crappy instant cameras.

All of the images are indistinct enough that Castiel has to take his time in placing them. He recognizes the sign outside of the comic book store Dean used to pretend to hate visiting when they were kids and the corsage that Dean gave him when they had their impromptu anti-prom a few hours after Cassie broke his heart that first time. There’s one of Naomi Bell’s hands clasped around Castiel’s finger, another of two mops of dark hair bent over a book. Near the bottom is a blurry image of a boy walking down a set of train tracks and next to that are two smiles dusted in powdered sugar. Castiel brushes his thumb over that one and then flips the journal open.

“I kinda started it off for you,” Dean says. “I hope that’s okay.”

A picture of him and his parents greets him, an identical replica of the one he keeps in a frame on his bookshelf. Castiel’s held up high on his dad’s hip and Mom’s pressed close on his other side. All of them are smiling, happy in that moment, and Castiel wishes he could remember it. It’s enough, though, to know that it happened.

Castiel means to tell Dean that he loves it, but somewhere the words must get tangled up on his tongue because what comes out instead is, “I love you.”

They both freeze because while it could just be something casual, like the flippant declarations they exchange when they’re drunk and high and couldn’t give a shit less about manly propriety, it’s clearly not. Castiel can hear in his voice the depth of the feeling, more than what friends feel for each other, more than he’s ever felt for another person. The words aren’t just a response to a beautiful gift, they’re urged out of him by every shared experience from the first moment they’ve met until now.

He isn’t just saying “I love you”, he’s saying “I’m in love with you” and somewhere in there is a note of reluctant resignation that says, “I know you don’t love me back.”

“Cas.” Dean’s voice is hoarse and his shoulders are stiff.

Castiel swallows hard and shakes his head. “It’s okay,” he says. “You don’t have to explain that you don’t feel the same way. I’ve always known it’s not like-”

The rest of Castiel’s speech is lost to the press of Dean’s lips against his own. There’s a soft thwump of sound as the journal slips from Castiel’s lax fingers. He feels like he’s just been struck by lightning, the sensation almost too much to even register on any cognitive level. Every part of his body hums at the softness of Dean’s lower lip slotting between his own and he could swear the hair on the back of his neck lifts at the gentle puff of breath against his mouth as Dean pulls back.

“I know how much you hate being wrong,” Dean says. “I thought I’d do you a favor and shut you up.”

Castiel knows he should say something, _do_ something, but all he can manage is to gape at Dean in shock.

When he manages to speak, all that comes out is a breathy, “But you’ve never-”

“I’ve always,” Dean corrects.

There’s a shit-eating grin playing at the corners of his mouth that’s at odds with his nervous glances down at his feet. That, more than anything, releases the tension in Castiel’s body. He reaches up and curls his fingers into the open collar of Dean’s overshirt and exhales a shaky breath when Dean just sways a little closer.

“I mean,” he continues, “I asked my dad if I could marry you when I was _nine_.”

That startles a laugh out of Castiel and he tips his forehead against Dean’s, something hot and tingly unfurling inside of him.

“You did not. What did he say?”

“Well,” Dean murmurs, a hand coming up to cup the back of Castiel’s head, “he said I’d grow out of it. But as of five hours ago I think he’s changed his tune.”

Castiel moves his hands up from Dean’s shirt, fingers framing the column of Dean’s throat and soaking up the warmth of the skin there.

“What makes you say that?”

“He told me. Actually, he started dropping hints months ago but while we were mashing potatos he told me if I let you slip through my fingers I’d regret it for the rest of my life and he raised me better than that.”

“Smart man,” Castiel says.

Dean goes quiet for a moment and then gives a gentle tug to Castiel’s hair; it’s been Dean’s preferred way of getting Castiel’s attention for years and it still sends sparks skittering up and down his spine. Castiel leans his head back and meets Dean’s gaze.

“I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you,” Dean says.

Castiel loops his arms more firmly around Dean’s shoulders and says, “Kiss me again.”

The smile that spreads across Dean’s face is incandescent and puts the strands of tiny, glowing bulbs surrounding them to shame. It hits Castiel in the instant before Dean closes the gap between them that it’s the same look from the picture on the beach which is the same look from the first day that they met and hundreds more since.

This time when Dean kisses him, Castiel kisses back and it’s everything that Meg and Balthazar and so many others weren’t. This is a kiss he feels down to the soles of his feet and the tips of his fingers. Every of Dean’s lips over his own sets off an explosion of sensation somewhere else in Castiel’s body until he feels lit up from the inside out.

Dean’s hands sink into his hair and shift Castiel exactly where he wants him, their lips moving together in smooth, seamless glides for endless, breathless minutes. They part for air and when they come back together, Castiel traces the seam of Dean’s lips with the tip of his tongue. That gets a deep, guttural groan in response and Castiel chases the sound, licking deep into Dean’s mouth and reveling in the taste of him.

Dean hauls Castiel closer until they’re one long line of solid heat from their shoulders down to the knees slotted between each other’s thighs. The intensity of the kiss grows; each flick of Dean’s tongue or scrape of his teeth sets Castiel’s nerve-endings on fire and leaves him gasping and desperate for more, for everything that’s suddenly being given to him.

“I think I’m gonna keep you,” Dean says, his lips moving over Castiel’s chin and down to his neck, “if that’s all right.”

Castiel tips his head back and gasps when blunt teeth drag across the skin stretched tight over his throbbing pulse.

“I don’t have a problem with it,” he says, voice breathy and strained.

He can feel the upward curve of Dean’s lips followed by a hot, open-mouthed kiss.

“Good,” he says.

Castiel slides his fingers into Dean’s hair and closes his eyes and loses himself in the overwhelming joy that comes from having everything he’s ever wanted right in the palm of his hands.

 

_Then_

 

The crunch of gravel under Dean’s sneakers is the only sound for miles aside from the buzz of cicadas and the birdsong that drifts through the air. There’s something about the quiet this far away from town that Dean likes, though he can’t really decide _why_. It should be lonely all the way out here by himself but Dean spends all of his time with friends and Mom, Dad, and Sammy. Sometimes it’s nice to be alone and explore things at his own leisure without worrying about what others might say or think.

The morning news had spent a good ten minutes talking about the heat wave rolling across the country and Dean feels it; his hair’s damp with sweat and his thin t-shirt feels like a parka it’s so hot out. He’d heard some older kids talking about a watering hole out this way, though, so he figures if he just keeps following the abandoned railroad he’ll find it and be able to cool down.

It takes him a good five minutes to realize he’s not alone. Whoever’s following him is quiet but there’s a snap of a twig from behind that finally clues Dean in and he whirls around to meet the wide, blue eyes of a boy about his age.

Whoever he is, Dean’s never seen him before and he’s sure he’d remember because you don’t just forget eyes like that. The kid’s dark hair is tousled but not like it’s on purpose; it looks more like he rolled out of bed and didn’t bother to comb it. He’s smaller than Dean but not by much, and he has a bag slung over his shoulders like the Spanish dudes in the movies they make Dean’s class watch about American exploration.

For some reason, Dean’s heart beats wild and fast in his chest only he isn’t scared. This is something else, something really weird and uncomfortable.

“What are you staring at?” Dean demands.

The boy blinks and then looks down at his feet. “Sorry,” he says. “Are you going to punch me, now?”

That draws Dean up short. He’s never really punched another kid in his life. Mom says violence never solves anything and Dad says you only hit someone in self-defense and never if it’s a girl. Not even, he says, if she hits you first. Dean thinks that might be a little unfair, but so far girls seem to like him okay so he doesn’t think he’ll ever have to worry about it.

“No,” Dean says. “Why would I punch you?”

The kid shrugs. “That’s what they do back home if I stare too long or follow them around.”

Dean wrinkles his nose. “Are you one of those creepy kids who hides in bushes and follows people home or somethin’?”

“No!” the boy bursts out, lifting his head to look at Dean. “I’m not like that. People are interesting, that’s all.”

His eyes are even bigger than before, like he’s scared Dean really does think he’s one of those really odd kids who just creeps everybody out. Dean hasn’t met many of them, actually, but he recognizes them in the older grades at school. They’re usually really quiet and don’t look like their moms make them take baths and Dean secretly thinks they just need someone to be nice to them.

This kid is different, Dean thinks. Still a little strange, though.

“You think I’m interesting?” Dean asks.

“Sure.”

Not many people think Dean’s all that interesting unless he’s done something wild or reckless. This boy thinks Dean’s worth paying attention to when he’s not doing anything other than walking. For some reason that makes Dean feel like he just took the first sip of a perfect cup of hot cocoa even though it’s a billion degrees outside.

Dean shoves his hands into his pockets and says, “Want to look for this secret spot with me?”

“What is it?” the kid asks, curious.

“Dunno. I haven’t found it yet.”

It takes a moment; the boy seems to be turning the question over and over in his head like when Mom asks Dean to spell a word he’s never seen before and he has to sound it out and put the letters together without writing them down.

“Yes,” the boy eventually says. “I’d like that.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “You talk funny,” he says.

“I’m smart,” the boy says, like that explains everything.

Maybe it does, Dean really doesn’t know. He gestures for the boy to come closer because they can’t keep walking like this, Dean a mile in front and the boy following him like a lost puppy. That’d just be stupid. Instead they walk down the narrow tracks side by side, a bounce to the boy’s step that makes Dean want to smile.

“I’m Dean,” he says.

“I’m Castiel,” the boy replies.

“Oh, jeez,” Dean groans. “That is the _worst_ name I’ve ever heard.”

Castiel makes a face and kicks at a stray rock. “I hate it,” he declares. “Everyone thinks it’s weird.”

It _is_ really bizarre and Dean can’t tell Castiel that it isn’t, but it’s not as bad as Castiel’s pinched expression makes it out to be. At least he’s different. There are two Matthews and three Lauras in Dean’s class. It has to be worse to know people will never see your name and think it’s special.

“I guess it’s not _that_ bad,” Dean says.

“It is,” Castiel tells him, but he seems happy that Dean’s not teasing him about it.

They walk in silence for a while and Castiel doesn’t try to fill it up with noise. It’s almost like he enjoys the sounds of summer as much as Dean, like he might be out here by himself for fun if they hadn’t crossed paths.

“Hey, Dean?” Castiel asks.

“Yeah?”

“Am _I_ weird?”

Dean stops and looks over at this boy he doesn’t know at all. He thinks of all the kids he’s friends with in town and how they never do anything interesting. They’re all so normal it’s almost annoying, the same birthday parties and sleepovers and stuff all the time. Dean likes being alone because then he doesn’t feel any pressure to be boring and ordinary. He and Castiel just met but Dean thinks this might be the only person in the whole world who wouldn’t mind Dean just . . . being himself.

Castiel’s probably pretty weird what with the name and the staring and all of that, but Dean doesn’t care. Dean kinda likes it.

“Yeah,” he says with a shrug. “But so what?”

That’s the first time Castiel smiles at him all toothy and happy and huge. It kicks up a flutter in Dean’s belly, like coming down that first big hill on a rollercoaster.

This is what falling in love feels like but he doesn’t know it yet. All he knows is that he enjoys how it feels when Castiel looks at him like that and so he grins back, toothy and happy and huge.

“I have a telescope,” Castiel says when they start walking again.

“No way,” Dean says.

“It’s in my satchel.”

“What the heck’s a satchel?”

The crunch of gravel is louder, now, as Dean and Castiel make their way toward some unknown destination together. They add their chatter and laughter to the chorus of humming insects and singing birds as they go.

The sound of it dances in the summer air like it knows something the rest of the world doesn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2011 Dean/Castiel Secret Santa Exchange on livejournal where it was originally posted [here](http://deancas-xmas.livejournal.com/83117.html). It was a gift for pyjamagurl. I figure this is the perfect time of year to archive it here!
> 
> The title is from E. E. Cummings' poem "i carry your heart with me".


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